Movie Jagoffs

We all know about the Talking Jagoffs and the Texting Jagoffs and the Excuse-Me-I-Have-To-Go-To-The-Bathroom-Ten-Times Jagoffs, but I want to talk about the Food Jagoffs: those patrons who insist on pairing their movie with a five course meal of a giant soft pretzel, a slice of pizza, a foot long chili dog, a box of chicken fingers, and a tray of nachos.

Let me be clear: I have nothing against snacking in a movie theater. Movies and popcorn have been an American tradition for more than a century. Personally, I prefer a box of Sno-Caps. But a full meal? It’s a concession stand, folks, not a Golden Corral.

I can’t understand why someone would even want that nasty and outrageously expensive theater food anyway. If you’re that hungry on the way to the show, drive through McDonalds! You can get a 20-piece McNugget for only $4.99 these days. That wouldn’t even cover the cost of your soft pretzel.

I wouldn’t even mind so much if they ate their food during the previews and then took their trash out into the hall. But instead, these bozos eat half of each plate, then stick their refuse under their seat where it quickly begins to decompose.

There’s nothing more disgusting than a pile of half-eaten food slowly disintegrating in a dark, crowded, airtight room. By the time the movie gets to the exiting climax, the entire theater smells like a dumpster out behind a roller rink.

I went to see “Inception” a few years back, and to me the biggest mystery was: why do Leonardo DiCaprio’s dreams smell like dried ketchup floating in a bed of congealed nacho cheese?

So to all you movie goers can’t make it two hours without a 5,000 calorie serving of processed meats and imitation cheese, please do me one favor –
go to Redbox… Ya Jagoffs!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed that our beloved city has become something of a big deal when it comes to movies. When I went to see the awesome movie Gravity a few weeks ago, I felt all kinds of civic pride when a preview for an upcoming Stallone and DeNiro flick featured several shots of the city skyline and the McKees Rocks Bridge.

I was considerably less proud of my city, and humanity in general, about 45 minutes later when it sounded like the whole theater had broken out in conversation.

If you’ve seen Gravity then you know that this is the kind of movie that swings between deafeningly loud and devastatingly quiet with not much in-between. Every time the volume got lower, I could hear the conversation between a mom and her elementary school age son sitting just behind us. I, too, am the parent of an intensely curious child who questions everything. I also know that there is a time and place to give detailed answers at full decibel and that a movie theater is not that place. I paid $13 a pop to see Clooney and Bullock in space not listen to your theories on space debris or life inside a satellite!!

And it wasn’t just them, a few rows behind there was a couple chatting and a few rows below that some teenage girls were whispering louder than the crowd at the Pirates’ wild card win.

By the time the movie got to the quiet point where I was supposed to reflect on Bullock’s emotional plight, I was too busy being angry to concentrate. Instead, I was seriously reflecting that hurdling through space seemed like a cakewalk compared to sitting in this theater and enduring one more minute of all this non-stop yakking!

Okay, so in the grand scheme of things, I know that talking in the movie theaters doesn’t really compare to space catastrophe but can anybody tell me what is so important and interesting that people can’t wait 90 minutes to tell somebody? Unless you get a text that Sidney Crosby is eating dinner at the PF Changs next door or there is an asteroid coming to destroy the theater, it can wait!

There are already 17 million reminders at the beginning of the movie to turn off your cell phones, do we also need a few dozen reminders to shut the hell up?

Even if societal manners have degraded to the point where all the jagoffs are talking during the movie, I want to believe that Pittsburghers are better than that.

So prove me right and next time you go out to see a movie, just sit down, shut up and enjoy the show, YA JAGOFFS!!

While they were packing everyone in to the theater, the movie trailer for “Fast and Furious” starring Vin Diesel came up. It’s clear from the trailer that this is an action movie with stuff blowing up, car crashes, guns, fists, dirt, smoke and sweat!

One of the scenes shows Vin Diesel and company fighting and they fall from an airplane into a car… PERFECT LANDING even by the Russian Judge without nobody killed.

The girl next to me yells, “They’d be DEAD!”

My thoughts: “NOOOOOO REALLY?”

At that point I was REALLY hoping that she had never seen E.T., The Santa Clause, Star Wars or Young Frankenstein (I’m sure you can name more).

Lady, we’re IN A MOVIE THEATER where they show “People-suddenly-fall-in-love-on-a-subway-The-ugly-guy-gets-the-hot-girl-Nobody-showers-or-brushes-their-teeth-after-having-sex-But-wakes-up-looking-perfect-Puppies-never-die-Unsuspecting-hero-sinks-the-basketball-to-win-the-championship-at-the-last-minute-Solve-the-murder-case-with-not-yet-invented-cool-pocket-scanners-in-24-hours-People-stand-real-close-to-explosions-get-knocked-down-and-brush-themselves-off-Even-Justin-Beiber-can-be-a-rockstar” type films.